1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a collapsible lens barrel, and in particular, to a collapsible lens barrel for use in a card type digital camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital cameras of a business card size called card type digital cameras preferably have no irregularities on their surfaces and are as thin as possible.
However, a photographing lens and a photographing element require a specified optical path length. Consequently, a decrease in thickness is limited.
Thus, in the card type digital camera described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 10-248029, a lens portion holding the photographing lens is adapted to extend from and collapse into a camera main body via a spring. Accordingly, before photographing, the lens portion is popped up from the camera main body to provide an optical path length for the photographing lens and element.
However, with the method of popping up the lens portion to extend the photographing lens, it is impossible to precisely extend the photographing lens to a predetermined photographing position. Consequently, an image formed position may deviate from the correct one. This disadvantageously prevents sharp images from being obtained. In particular, in recent years, card type digital cameras of this kind have a large number of pixels. Thus, the deviation of the image formed position may markedly affect image quality.